Windows Live API to be opened

In Day 2 of Mix ’07 Brian Arbogast announced new Windows Live API which are now easy to use, simpler licensing and ready to go.

(My photo with Brian Arbogast here has nothing to dowith Mix ’07 – it was taken on 22/Oct/2004 in Gurgaon)

Microsoft is certainly late to the game, but can they pull it off from behind this time, let us wait and see.

Videos Support – SilverLight Streaming

Spaces Photos – Currently Read-only, soon to be Write-Read

Windows Live Contacts – Access to Hotmail

Virtual Earth Maps

Add Live Search to your site

They are introducing a new concept – User Controlled Privacy Model. By this Users can limit access of their data to a particular domain. I think this is good from a business and long-term sustainability stand-point.

All the services are free up to a limit and then a predictable annual charge.

Windows Live Platform Terms of Use

There were demos about a mashup by Microsoft on blog and Virtual Earth and by Match.com using Windows Live APIs. I was surprised to learn about the scale of Match.com is responsible for 10% of all marriages that happen in USA, 60K customers every day, 55 Million emails every month. It was interesting they are also an 100% Microsoft Shop (IIS/SQL Server/.NET) and push a giga-bit of traffic every second. Their mash-up with Live Search especially the anonymous Messenger Chat using Live Alerts was cool (see the second image below).